I attended the Milton City Council meeting last night where residents had a chance to hear some opening comments from Lew Oliver with Whole Town Solutions. Whole Town Solutions was hired by Milton to come up with a few designs for the Crabapple Crossroads area, or really the “greater Crabapple area” to help the city have a vision and plan for how to proceed with development.
We, as residents and business owners in Milton, have an opportunity over the next week to provide our thoughts and input for the City of Milton to take into consideration as it plans for the future of what will ultimately become Milton City Center in Crabapple. You can see the scheduled meetings and provide your input on the City of Milton website.
What Was Discussed
At a very high level Lew Oliver talked about design consideration and showed examples of good city planning, such as downtown Monroe, Ga and downtown Dahlonega, Ga but also some bad design implementation in and around our areas of Roswell and Alpharetta. His discussion focused on building ascetics, pedestrian access and traffic. Essentially a list, of sorts, of things to keep in mind as we all talk about what “our vision” of Crabapple and Milton should be.
Right now there isn’t anything that MUST be on the table, nor is there anything that is off the table. It’s a starting point for a part of our future and it’s an important part. We have an opportunity to highlight everything we see as missing from our city and point out the warts and scars (see shell gas station) that we would love to see gone…or improved. But we should keep in mind that we can’t control everything, we’ll have to work within the constraints we have. Meaning the gas station isn’t going to disappear and if a cell tower is there, then it is there.
Knowns and Unknowns
And now for the dreaded T word: Traffic. It’s the subject sure to deteriorate any discussion about our local area into an unending argument about whether traffic will get better or worse with any proposed changes. By the end, the discussion boils down to a “choice” of doing something or doing nothing – which isn’t really a choice.
Because what we also know, without any doubt, is we have traffic right now and we’ll have more in the future. Regardless of what we do or don’t do. We also know that developers will build anything they want if we let them. Beautiful, functional downtown areas don’t grow organically. If we, as a city, don’t identify what we would like to see built then it won’t happen. That’s the big unknown I don’t think we should risk.
What I Think We Need
We need a city center that is pedestrian and bike friendly first but not blind to the necessity of access by automobiles. It should feel integrated to the surrounding communities and schools. Not closed off like another “subdivision island” with one way in and one way out.
It should take commercial and retail into account because we’ll want access to stores, restaurants and shops; but it can be done thoughtfully like Birmingham crossroads for instance, so it feels like it belongs in the community. To be a complete community we will have to consider just about every type of zoning. Will we have a library? Will the city government be located there? What about green space? It should all be taken into account.
It’s clear that people love living in Crabapple and more will want to be there. It isn’t just the local community that enjoys the restaurants – look at the crowded parking lots of Sip, Milton’s and Olde Blind Dog. Crabapple has a great start but so much can happen between where it is now and what it will ultimately become. If we let the discussion focus solely on words like traffic and density we’ll never get there. With good design and thoughtful input from the community we can manage the traffic and density we already have and plan to accommodate the increase we know will be there in the future. Let’s not focus on what we hate but work together on making Milton everything we love.
What do you think we need?
Don’t dance all around it, just come right out and say it. We need… mixed use development with condos. Right?
Not saying that, just saying we need to plan for our future rather than say I don’t like this or that so let’s do nothing – which is where the argument often ends up. It’s easy to sit back and snark (not pointing fingers) and more difficult but much more rewarding to be a part of the process. I just hope the discussions for Crabapple focus more on what people would like to see rather than problems we don’t like.
Should we discourage people from talking about what they don’t like?
I appreciate the terrific restaurants in Crabapple. I’m trying to make more of an effort to dine there. But as someone who lives east of GA-400, it’s tough to get over that way. If changes are to be made, I’d four lane Mayfield and Rucker roads. I’d also build larger parking. I have a low tolerance for parking problems. Given my options elsewhere in Alpharetta and Milton, I’ll avoid restaurants that require me to park on streets and walk.
I believe all our local blogs (yours and mine included) are contributing to the discussion and the process. Perhaps you don’t feel that way?
Bob, I’m glad you did a post on the Crabapple master planning process. Indeed it is a good thing to plan. Lest the ‘neighborhood’ end up looking like the intersection of Old Milton Parkway and Kimball Bridge Rd. We can do things better than that. I’ve seen it done. We can also mitigate some problems and just accept that others (traffic) won’t ever go away… Remember that before cars, you still had traffic but you had to watch out for the horse sht when you crossed the road. One other thing is that traffic is not a bad word.. our economy is built on traffic.. web traffic, foot traffic, car traffic, etc.. What you don’t want is congestion that paralyzes your traffic. I too often interchange the words but they are definitely not the same.
Crabapple is luck to have Lew Oliver’s company working on the master plan. I’m sure you’ve seen his work outside of Vickery but anyone who isn’t familiar should really come to my neighborhood in the Mill Village in Roswell to get a better idea. The Bricks and Founders Mill townhomes are absolutely beautiful and are a great example of how density can be added to existing neighborhoods without increasing congestion, crime, poverty and all of those other nasty assumed consequences of density. I hope you guys come up with a great MP.
Also, don’t assume that a four lane road is your ticket to prosperity. If you’ve ever visited the beaches of south walton (Seaside, Watercolor, Rosemary Beach, etc) You’ll know that 2 laners can provide more than sufficient access to a neighborhood/town center when the visitors/residents can get out of their car and walk for a significant portion of their day or stay.
2 lanes is fine – provided there are dedicated turn lanes besides those 2 traffic lanes. Unlike the beach, this area is not only a destination, it is also a bottleneck. A crossroads, if you will…people have to go through it and not just stay there.
“…but also some bad design implementation in and around our areas of Roswell and Alpharetta.”
Please elaborate.
Ryan, Good point. I do think it would work with a dedicated turn lane as you suggest.
Kim, I think Lew is talking about some of the horribly designed strip centers near the historic district here in Roswell as well as the layout of the majority of both of Ros and Alph in a superblock fashion that creates limited routes for all the cars to use and makes it very difficult to walk anywhere meaningful in most locations.
As a resident of that area of Milton that Milton is so ashamed of….”West of Highway 9″ or WOH9, you know, the bit of Milton that has lots of residents packed into townhouses, apartments etc. all paying taxes to help fund this great “city” with it’s lofty ambitions of no mixed use development but a fancy town hall etc…..How will this be paid for? My property taxes have gone up considerably over the 14 years I have lived here, plus the added taxes of the “city of Milton”.
Commercial development is needed and has to be factored in as part of a longterm plan, not just more NIMBY policies.
As an Alpharetta resident and luxury home realtor in this area, I am always maintaining informed of the happenings. Thank you for your informative blog.